Archive for December, 2012

Open-source games console start-up OUYA has begun shipping out its first batch of developer hardware, with eager recipients told to expect their new toys before January 10. The first shipping notifications began to hit inboxes today, according to the official OUYA forums, with sample dev kits consisting of the console itself and two controllers.

Gaming marathons for charity's sake isn't anything new. There's the Super Mario Marathon for the Child's Play charity, as well as the Zelda marathon for GameToAid. This time around, ExtraLives.org is hosting a Pokethon, a Pokemon marathon that will take place all weekend long and into the new year.

This year the Microsoft team working with developers for Windows Phone 8 have made a grand effort in getting not just a massive amount of apps into the market, but high quality apps at that - hitting a 75,000 market inside 2012. This number was assured this week by Microsoft official Todd Brix on the Windows Phone Developer Blog where they've also let it be known that the Windows Phone market has had over 300,000 app updates inside 2012 as well. This addition of 75,000 apps to the market has more than doubled the catalog size compared to the total at the end of 2011.

The hunt for ancient life under the Antarctic ice has ended for one British team, after technical problems forced drills offline over the holidays. "On Christmas Eve we took the decision to cease our efforts to directly measure and sample Subglacial Lake Ellsworth" professor Martin Siegert of the British Antarctic Survey confirmed, with experts still uncertain as to what prevented two 300m boreholes from converging as planned, and allowing scientists to search for subglacial life and evidence of climate change.

As the most populous city in the US, New York City naturally has seen a lot of crime, but the last 20 years has seen lower crime rates. However, this year has seen an increase, thanks mostly to thefts of various Apple products around the city. Specifically, grand larceny in 2012 was up 9%, according to the NYPD.

Android app player BlueStacks has launched for Mac, with a new beta allowing OS X users to run software intended for Android phones and tablets on their iMac, MacBook Pro, or other Apple kit. The freshly released beta - which follows a similar Windows version released earlier this year - means more than 750,000 Android titles can now be run on OS X, a huge increase from the sparse number of compatible titles from June's alpha release for Mac.

Steve Jobs' yacht, the Starck-designed Venus, hasn't had an easy time over the holidays, impounded in Amsterdam over unpaid bills, but that gave harbor hunters a chance to snap some new video of the crisp-edged craft. Michiel Frackers took a post-Christmas walk to the former container terminal where Venus was being held, and rather fittingly used an iPhone 5 to film the distinctive yacht as it was being tended to by crew.

While smartwatches may seem like a short-lived fad, it's rumored that Apple and Intel think the contrary. It's said that the two companies are teaming up to release an "iWatch" sometime in 2013. The device would connect to your Apple devices via Bluetooth, especially the iPhone and iPod line, in order to relay information from these devices to the watch.

Samsung has confirmed that the original Galaxy Note is in line for an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade, complete with the Premium Suite functionality from the newer Note II that adds split-screen navigation among other things. The new software, Samsung says, will include the ability to run two apps simultaneously on the Note's 5.3-inch display, along with polishing to the way screen clippings can be captured.

Several games that were (and still are) a huge hit on mobile platforms are making their way to LG Cinema 3D Smart TVs. LG announced today the arrival of several new games, including Where’s My Water, The Sims FreePlay, Air Penguin, Mini Motor Racing, and many more. LG says these games are incredible immersive an interactive, thanks to compatibility with the company's motion-sensing Magic Remote.